LaCie and Porsche combine sophistication, style and technology with the creation of the Porsche Design USB Key.
USB drives have come a long way since their first introduction to the personal storage market in the year 2000. I remember my first USB key being 128MB in size. Now, they come in sizes as high as 1TB and are much more affordable than they used to be. Some manufacturers have even turned them into works of art.
LaCie, a premier manufacturer of high quality digital storage, works to combine design and technology to create beautiful, performance-driven products. It’s no wonder that LaCie decided to partner with Porsche, a brand synonymous with luxury and style. The two brands created their partnership ten years ago and developed a line of stylish, technologically advanced external hard drives including the LaCie Porsche Design USB Key.
The Porsche Design USB Key is sleek and sophisticated like the name suggests. It comes equipped with USB 3.0 (USB 2.0 compatible) and offers a capacity of either 16GB or 32GB. USB 3.0 offers up to 95MB/s transfer speed. The Porsche Design USB Key has the full security suite available from LaCie, which includes LaCie Private/Public password protection, Wuala Secure Cloud Storage (up to 1 year), LaCie Genie Timeline (Windows) and Intego Backup Assistant (Mac). The software protection suite keeps your data safe with AES 256-bit encryption and lets you easily create a password-protected area on your key for confidential data.
The first impression I had of this product was, “Wow. Someone put thought into that design.” It’s compact design makes it incredibly functional and because it’s constructed with solid steel, it’s also incredibly strong.
As for the transfer speeds, I used my MacBook Pro with USB 3.0. I used two separate files – each under 1GB in size – and two comparison USB drives for testing – one PNY 16GB drive that is only one year old and the other is a San Disk 8GB flash drive that is several years old. Both the comparison drives are USB 2.0.
The first series of speed tests was with a 46MB file. Here are the results (all times in seconds):
- San Disk 19.03
- PNY 7.86
- LaCie 3.11
The second series of tests I did involved a file that was 165.1MB in size. Here are the results:
- San Disk 43.51
- PNY 28.13
- LaCie 13.46
The clear winner in these speed tests is the LaCie Porsche Design USB Key. I will say it was interesting to see the huge jump between the San Disk and the PNY drives, too.
All in all, I was very impressed by this device. It far exceeded my expectations with its style and functionality. I recommend the Porsche Design USB Key to anyone who likes compact, but tough file storage on the go. LaCie’s Porsche Design USB Key retails for $29.99 (16GB) and $49.99 (32GB).
For more information, visit LaCie online at www.lacie.com.
